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You are here: Home / scicu-news-releases / Allen University Professor Remembers the Charleston Nine with Poem

Allen University Professor Remembers the Charleston Nine with Poem

June 25, 2015 By SC Independent Colleges & Universities

allen-sm

The death of nine parishioners at Emanuel AME Church fell particularly hard on Allen University which counted three of its alumni among the dead. To mark the event and remember all who died, Allen University and President Lady June Cole held a Pray for Peace Vigil on June 25.

Among the many remembrances was a heartfelt and moving poem written by Dr. Charlene M. Spearen especially for the vigil. Dr. Spearen is Assistant Professor of English, Director and Co-founder of the Langston Hughes Poetry Center, and Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs at Allen University.

 We are the nine …

…like the pause/between dusk and darkness/ between fury and peace,/ but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.”                                                                                                                       –Derek Walcott “The Season of Phantasmal Peace”

i

Depayne Middleton Doctor

Baby, pin a star on me.

Come quickly, see the light in my eyes,

call me lady, this lady blossomed

four dazzling girls, and like fallen leaves,

a natural reshaping of what was

into what is, God’s way of being the helping

hand to grow back flowers: black-eyed susans,

inpatiens, golden marigolds that smile back

at the sun, I will, with the Lord’s helping hand,

grow the flower of forgiveness while I continue

to live-out inside the light of your imagination.

ii

Cynthia Hurd

Baby, pin a star on me.

The lord’s word was written down

in a great book, and I heard His message,

heard right from the start the music of words,

the rhythm of serving the notes of learning,

Knowledge unlocking-click

Minds unlocking-click

Growing in the light-click

Understanding the lost energy of a frown-click

Respect for what the lord gives-click

How a misshapen view, like a pulled trigger-bang-bang

can teach us how to live inside the fire of forgiveness.

iii

Susie Jackson

Baby, pin a star on me

The winds of time cycled a good many paths

through my garden, and honey there is no use

bringing politics into my journey, we all know

Jim Crow, his story.  Crows still eat the budding corn,

rioting words still, like spilled honey, spread  over

a baby’s cinnamon skin.

I am now still and cold

so sing to me of hanging stars

church hymns that rock the altar

and dark trees that can never hide the rising sun.

iv

Ethel Lance

Baby, pin a star on me.

I know the meaning of real work

how to serve the lord, the shaft of pain,

how sitting idle can invite the devil in

can come dressed in an innocent face

sheep’s clothing (black churches never

were a safe place), but share this, on Sunday morning

I was Ms. Ethel. Amen, you talk about recreation!

God’s house was always my palace.  Honey, never

get lost in the motion, despair’s bottomless sea, never

bury hope in the past, stare-down hypocrisy

conjure out of this the rising of a new day.

v

The Rev. and SC State Senator Clementa Pinkney

Baby, pin a star on me.

I know many houses swim with tortured

elocution, ugly words roll off tongues

like a fired gun. This is why God told me

to walk with all my brothers and sisters,

to preach his word, we are their keepers.

Friends, go down the road

go, then, go to where action affirms God-given rights

moves,  rolls magic,  a holy drum roll, be like a preacher

preaching the miracle of forgiveness.

Wash this church clean, go forth, go forth

wash the world clean.

vi

Tywanza Sanders

Baby, pin a star on me.

Mom says I am her hero.

I never set out to be one, just wanted

to live, be a good Christian, be a good son

a good person, a good poet. To spread

a real message, make things better.  O say can you

see…a better future, politicians always need new

jumpstarts, willy-nilly waddle through fields

filled with white lilies. Snip, snip, buzz

buzz carry my name, our blood flowing like

stoplights. There is always the need for hoodooing

new songs, new lyrics wooing daybreak and the cock’s

crowing three times. Celebrate the call and response

woven inside my shimmering poems and my words:

Why are you doing this…  

vii

Brother, Rev. Dr. Lee Simmons

Baby, pin a star on me.

Our Father, Heavenly Father, Lord Father,

you have heard me pray these words

when despairs’ dark moan and creak

fills the soul. But today we are standing

on the deck of new beginnings.  I want

to be in this, be with my family, church family,

pray with the enemy who brings darkness

into a holy, summer, night, cry out Jesus,

halleluiah. Tell them not to give in, not one bit,

believe in God, always, His will

will be done.  Night always ends with a clear

register for a new day, the hope of a holy amen.

viii

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Baby, pin a star on me.

I was transformed by love,

became of a visible burning

in my home, my church, served, all

saw no difference, really, Mother,

Mother Church, Mother World, Mother

Nature is the hand of God, can walk in

on a soft breeze, fly like a fly-ball even when

I was setting a Sunday-dinner table. Time will

pass, at first a moment here and there like

a fleeting world, we will breathe regular breaths,

unfeeling as it seems, but always depend

on the Lord’s promises, and how hitting a home-run

can happen inside one simple prayer.

ix

Myra Thompson

Baby, pin a star on me.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him

shall never thirst…” Samaritan women are everywhere,

inside a classroom, inside the corner store, inside a church,

placing flowers on a alter, slowly like a photo taking form,

they shape the world. Teach, preach far and wide

love, compassion, knowledge that expands the mind. Look into

my round, brown, eyes, pocketbook my gently smile, minister

the sick, sick of body, sick of mind. Keep a white drees, white

leather pumps, white gloves, white hat in your closet,

let your skin shine and remember we are the Emanuel nine.

–Charlene Spearen, 2015

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